I hoped to learn more grammar and review the vocabulary that I’ve been learning. I think I was able to complete these goals these past two weeks.
As usual, I met with Professor Kim over Zoom these past two weeks. The vocabulary we have been learning these past two weeks have been about different buildings, such as “bookstore”, “bank”, “department store”, and “restaurant”. She also tested me on different adjectives and miscellaneous items. I’ve been doing pretty well on the vocabulary test and things are getting easier to remember. Something Professor Kim has been doing that I’ve found very helpful is after each word we go over; she will ask me a question in which I have to use the word. I think it’s helpful to practice using the word and gives me a better context of when it would be used. It also helps me practice my speaking and grammar. After the vocabulary test, we did a conjugation activity. Professor Kim sent me a worksheet with a bunch of verbs on it. In one column I was supposed to change the verb to polite informal and in another column, I was supposed to change the verb to polite formal. This was an interesting and fun activity that gave me a lot of practice with conjugation. Some of the irregular verbs were tricky but it was a good reminder that those verbs had special exceptions. Another activity we did was finish reading the sentences that we didn’t get to in previous weeks. We were able to finish the reading activity which was good practice for my reading and speaking skills.
These past two weeks, I also met with Jannette. Since I practiced verb conjugation with Professor Kim, I wanted to practice verb conjugation and speaking with Jannette. We came up with hypothetical situations where depending on the context, I would conjugate the verb accordingly. I thought that this was a fun activity and was very engaging. I liked that it reflected real life situations and forced me to be aware of the context and who I was speaking to. I find it so interesting that depending on who you are speaking to, the conjugation of the verb will change. This doesn’t really exist in English, so it has been hard for me to get into that mindset. I often default to the informal conjugation of a verb even when I am speaking to someone older than me, such as Professor Kim. I think this was good practice to rewire my brain to think as a Korean so I can conjugate verbs correctly without much thought.
In order to practice what I’ve learned these past two weeks I will continue having practice conversations. I liked the activity that I did with Jannette where I would conjugate depending on the situation, so I think I would like to continue doing that. As I’ve said in the past, watching Korean dramas and movies has been a fun way to practice. I try to pick up on how they are conjugating verbs depending on who they are speaking to. It’s cool to notice how someone’s speech will change depending on whether they are talking to someone younger than them or someone older than them.
I think my strategies have been effective so far. My vocabulary continues to expand, and I am becoming more efficient at recalling vocabulary. I think that my listening skills are also improving after exposing myself to Korean more often. Understanding a sentence when watching Korean dramas or movies is a really great feeling and makes me confident in my learning.
In order to build on what I’ve learned so far, I hope to continue expanding my vocabulary and learning new grammar rules. I also want to make sure that I reinforce the material that I’ve learned in previous weeks so I will look over that material. I will continue using apps to teach me new vocabulary that I can try to use when speaking.
Comments
Great post, Gavin! It is good to see you sharing the activities you have done to learn Korean. I really like your activities. As I am learning Korea, I always find that I am not good at applying those rules I learned to a sentence I want to express. Doing practicing activities will definitely help a lot. Hope you can continue doing so. Also, watching Korean movies or TV shows is very good way to learn the spoken language, improve your accent, and learn more about the slangs.